I am sure I’m not the only one thinking this way. With Giuliani and Edwards both stepping down from the race, and a little…very little…imagination, I can see the Republican ticket being John McCain for President with Rudy Giuliani as his running mate, and Barack Obama as the Democratic choice, with John Edwards are his running mate. What do you think?

And how do I feel about that? No opinions right now, saving that up for when the real race begins.

A lot can happen on the big day next week, “Super Tuesday” which follows the “Super Bowl” (the Giants will beat the Patriots…oh, oops, this is a political blog, sorry), but it really has been amazing to watch the political landscape change over the past weeks.

I have to admit that it’s exciting to see Obama doing as well as he is. He’s not from my party affiliation, but since starting this blog, I’ve been paying much closer attention than I EVER would have before to caucuses and primaries, and I’m delighted that SC was a sweep for him…I’m not very fond of Hillary…the debate in SC was rediculous, and all the talk about racial issues in the media, I thought we were beyond that. Naive me. I feel a bit bad that Edwards is down at the bottom of the “big 3″.

We got our Primary sample ballots in the mail this week, and I am pretty sure I know who I’ll vote for in our Primary on “Super Tuesday”, out of principle, more than thinking that he’ll get the number of delegates he needs.

After ALL these primaries are over, and the real “competition” begins between the parties, watch out I’ll be getting a lot more opinionated…as if I haven’t been already?

A friend sent me the following today by email, another that I had not seen before, it passed the “Urban Legends” test, and I love it….so I’m posting it here.

The Pledge of Allegiance - by Senator John McCain.

As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home. One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.

Mike came from a small town near Selma, Alabama. He didn’t have a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17 , he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing. Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt. Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike’s shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event. One day the Vietnamese searched our cell, as they did periodically, and discovered Mike’s shirt with the flag sewn inside, and removed it.

That evening they returned, opened the door of the cell, and for the benefit of all of us, beat Mike Christian severely for the next couple of hours. Then, they opened the door of the cell and threw him in. We cleaned him up as well as we could.

The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle on which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room.

As I said, we tried to clean up Mike as well as we could. After the excitement died down, I looked in the corner of the room, and sitting there beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend, Mike Christian. He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, making another American flag. He was not making the flag because it made Mike Christian feel better. He was making t hat flag because he knew how important it was to us to be able to Pledge our allegiance to our flag and country.

So the next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you must never forget the sacrifice and courage that thousands of Americans have made to build our nation and promote freedom around the world. You must remember our duty, our honor, and our country

‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God , indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I don’t have strong feelings about who I would like to be President yet…Thompson’s out of the Repub. race, Hillary and Obama are boring me with their arguments. What I do have strong feelings about is the significance of January 22, 1973, when the Supreme Court decided it was okay to kill babies. 35 years have passed since that date, and approximately 50 million precious lives have been thrown away in trash cans and other ways, and disposed of like pieces of garbage. Those that are behind the “pro-death” movement try to justify it as something that saves many woman who have life-threatening pregnancies. You can’t convince me that the lives of 50 million woman have been saved, I think we all know better. Most abortions are a matter of convenience, a precious life doesn’t fit into the picture right now, so it is done away with.

After all of that, let me tell you that I spent a good bit of time volunteering with a pregnancy center, trying to help young girls see that there were options to abortion, it broke my heart to see their tears, it broke my heart to hear some tell me that they had to do this because their parents wanted it, it was hard. But nothing justifies killing. Because I believe in the forgiveness God provided through Jesus, I know there is forgiveness for even something as ugly as this, but first one has to see it for what it is, wrong, and seek that forgiveness, and help stop the killing.

Millions marched in Washington DC today, many were teenagers, providing great hope for the future, and President Bush has done his part by appointing justices that are pro-life, that is part of his legacy. He has spoken to the crowds remotely each year, click here to read his thoughts, shared more eloquently than my blunt words, thank you, President Bush.

Today has been a day of remembering a very special man, Martin Luther King. Usually on this day if I post about him, I include something about his famous and wonderful “I Had a Dream” speech, but today, a wonderful woman, and an “online” sister, Ora Stearns Smith, posted something I hadn’t seen before on her blog. It was a letter written by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama in April of 1963. The start of the letter follows, to read it in it’s entirety, follow the link to Ora’s blog posting. It’s well worth the read.
“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights.

A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions…

CLICK HERE to read the letter in it’s entirety at Ora’s blog.

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Image source…click for more Martin Luther King speeches and biographical information.

I was “blog-hopping” today, and came upon a blog that caught my eye, because the blogger lives in my home state of New Jersey, and she’s a Mom with a husband, and children serving our country in the military.

As you know from earlier posts about members of my family, we appreciate so much our men and woman who serve our great country. So thank you, “New Jersey Army Mom“, and hugs all around to your wonderful family…I hope a few people find their way to your blog through mine.

Would you believe hubby and I finally got around to watching the debate last night? Yes, we’ve been on a bit of “debate overload” and kind of spoiled by the informal debates before this one, so weren’t ready to watch the candidates standing behind podiums for yet another round.

So, we went into the debate after listening to everyone go on about how Thompson had really opened up, and did a great job! That’s all that was talked about on the news, so we were expecting a LOT.

Well, Thompson did do a great job, he really did, but I wish he had been this way all along. I am going to have to be convinced that it’s going to last. We also thought McCain answered well, though my hubby still holds on to some things McCain has done during his time in the Senate that don’t sit well with him. We loved how Huckabee handled the question about the Christian view of a wife submitting to her husband, and husband to the wife, he really said it like it is, and wasn’t ashamed to boldly stand for his faith. Ron Paul often seems to be out in left field somewhere (literally), but I do have to admit he had me thinking when he responded to the challenge as to whether or not he is electable, because he seems not to hold to Republican views. He mentioned views held by several in the early history of the party (forgive, I can’t recall the names) and how it is NOW that the party is not holding to what it originally stood for. As for Giuliani, once again, we admired him greatly as our neighboring State Mayor, but he seems to be having a hard time getting ahead in the Campaign. And how could I forget Romney? He is the one my husband thinks has it the most together, the one my husband thinks will respond to whatever happens most effectively without concern about what people think, he’s the one my DH thinks is most presidential, at least right now.

“Super Tuesday” is upon us, let’s see what the day brings..oh, oops, that’s not tomorrow, it’s Feb 5th! It’s the Michigan Primary we’re watching for the repubs and dems this Tuesday, and then on the 19th, the SC Primary for the Repubs and the Nevada Caucuses for both parties.